Thursday, June 19, 2008

Big Trouble in Little Carolla... and a spot of embroidery.

Last night my car decided to break down in a very inconvenient place. (For those of you who know Melbourne, think "middle lane of Punt Rd at the Bridge Rd intersection". For those of you who don't know Melbourne, just know that it's NOT A GOOD PLACE to wait forty minutes for a tow truck!!).

I could give you the long, sad tale, but the upshot of it is that I didn't get as much done last night or today as I'd have liked.... so I'm showing you photos of OLD work instead of new.

I was going to do LOADS of machine embroidery today, in preparation for my class on Saturday. As it was, I only got a little bit done (and no photos), so will be back at the sewing machine again tomorrow.

It's SO MUCH FUN!!! I haven't had time for much embroidery for a while now, and I'd almost forgotten how satisfying it can be. It's amazing how something really simple can add so much ZING to a purse! Expect to see a bit more of it from now on...I made these flowers about four years ago, and I still dig them out for workshops to show techniques that can be used with free machine embroidery. I'm inspired to make more flowers as "jewellery" lately, so have kept these hanging around the studio to remind me to get onto it.

My old housemates car developed a problem where it could only be push started (when we were all poor students so it took awhile to get fixed). One night we were coming back from a party at around 1am and in almost that same spot, this was the Punt Rd & Victoria St intersection, he stalled the car and the engine turned off - we had to push start the car in the MIDDLE of the intersection! Was very funny afterwards when we had done it safely and weren't crashed into etc.

Hi Nikki,Punt Road, stressfulllll most of the day!!! I am not sure how I would've handled that myself other than the obvious PANIC!! Your fabric flowers are very inspiring, I remember making them up in an embellishment class, alot of fun (I still have mine :). I must say I would be very excited to see your inspiration for flower necklaces. I think they would look amazing. Could also go well race season for that little something different?? instead of fascinator??

I've only broken down in the middle of an intersection once and luckily a couple of guys helped push the car out of the way and jump started it for me. Waiting for 40 minutes at that intersection would've been awful, poor you!

Yep - my little car chose a doozy of a place to say "no more"!! It wasn't peak hour - 9.30pm. I was on my way home from teaching a long TAFE class.

A guy stopped and (waited for a break in the traffic..then) rolled the car back down the hill and parked half-on-half-off the centre strip of Punt Rd. Standing there for those extra 30-odd minutes, I was actually amazed at how many people rolled down their windows to ask if I was OK. I was cold, tired and wanting to get home, but it wasn't as bad as being caught out in the midst of whizzing traffic (which was TERRIFYING!!!).

I told you it was a long, sad tale... shan't bore you with the details (or the mechanic's bill).